Cape Cornwall

sunlight on the water
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Long Sunday walks with the dog. Off to Gwithian Towans (big strip of beach opposite St. Ives) and Cape Cornwall (just up from Lands End). No point explaining what the photo's about, as you can see it. However I did see something similar when I was in Norway a couple of years ago, at Nordcaap (or Norkapp or NodCorp or Nnnnnnn... ). This is the northermost post of mainland Europe, high up in the Arctic Circle, and it really does look like the end of the world. If you've ever read Phillip Pullman's 'Dark Materials' trilogy (and anyone who reads my blog is automatically intelligent, erudite and gorgeous, so yes, you all have), you'll know that further out to sea, there's an island called Svalbard, home of talking armoured polar bears, but I didn't go there.
Either way, it's the bleakest, most desolate place I've ever been to, and if you can block out the fifty-odd coachloads of tourists pulling to the visitors' centre behind you, one of the most beautiful. As I was looking out onto... pretty much nothing, there was a break in the clouds and a small patch of ocean was lit up. It could have been half a mile across, could have been a hundred, and for a moment you really could believe there was some kind of gateway to another world out there. I did take a photo, and of course it was rubbish. So today I got another chance at that photo, and this time it kind of worked.

The guardian unlimited made this site pick of the week on the 28th (I suspect before I started arsing on about gateways to other worlds), and I didn't notice until I got back. Jane Perrone, of said site, has a rather nice blog called Horticulture, which has some terribly good pictures of pumpkins.

Popped into my nan's on the way back from Cape Corwall, and got some cooking apples to bake later tonight, thereby adding 'mellow fruitfulness' to 'mists' and rendering me eligible for 'blog cliche of the month award'. Hurrah! Still, this really does feel like the first proper five-star autumnal sunday I've had this year, with the accompanying feelings of cosy warmth and well-being that previously I've only seen in Bailey's adverts.

That said, if any kids in hoodies try trick or treating my domicile tonight, I will beat them to death with their own keychains. I'm just saying.

C.F.C.

Okay, if anyone knows a cute, slightly freckly chick travelling back from St. Lucia to Falmouth on the 20.35, please apologise to her for me on behalf of my appalling chatting-up skills.

I don't normally try and talk to people on trains, especially attractive female people, but we'd traded 'tuh' expressions after a group of extraordinarily drunk people got off at Penryn, so the ice was sort of broken. I noticed her luggage had Virgin Atlantic stickers on it, so I asked her where she'd come from.

CFC: St. Lucia.
JH: Cool. (pause) Where's that?
CFC: The Caribbean (note: it may not have been the Caribbean, it could have been some other islands. My geographical knowledge is rubbish).
JH: Ah, right. Only your sticker had LVG (or similar, see above) on it, and I was trying to work out what airport that was. (I wasn't. Why did I say that?)
CFC: Gatwick.
Pause
JH: Oh.
Pause, during which we get to my stop and the doors open.
JH: Well, I'd better get off the Train of Incredibly Drunk People then.

I got off the train, realized if it sounded like I was insinuating it was she who was incredibly drunk, then gave up and wandered home. God, it's not as if I would even have asked her out for a drink or anything, I'd just like to be able to converse normally with people I've known for less than ten years. They're easy, you can just say 'Where's my pint, you big poof?'. Job done. So anyway, in the unlikely occurance that anyone knows aforementioned CFC, I thought she was very nice, and didn't mean to make her hark back to the Time of the Drunk People as some kind of mythical Golden Age.

Could have been worse. Neil Gaiman's blog mentions he just got back from St. Lucia, so if I'd been on the train any longer I would have said something like 'Hey did you see Neil Gaiman out there? He wrote 'American Gods', which was great, and some other stuff which was great. I like great things.'

In fairness to me (and I'm always in favour of that), journey back from Rufus was truly epic, with the staff on Paddington ticket barrier behaving like demonic archetypes from some Joseph Campbellian nightmare. The woman may never have dealt with three Cornish people using the Folded Arms and Steely Glare of Doom before though, because she eventually crumbled and let us get the fucking train we'd fucking booked fucking tickets for.

Missed the last GW episode last night of course, as I was at the Rufus Wainwright concert. He was of course magnifique. One of his encores ended with the band running behind the curtain to get witch hats and cloaks, then finishing a song (can't remember which one) by slumping to the ground and melting in the style of the Wicked Witch of the East. Anyway, yes, off to watch last GW ep now. Seen it already, obviously, but if you don't see it on telly, it doesn't count.

Some people seem to have become convinced that GW2 isn't going to be set in a hospital. Not jumping the gun, but I think that may have come about due to filming in a real hospital being a bit restrictive so possibly moving to all-built sets next time round. I did (quite genuinely) suggest we set series two a hundred years before series one, as I think the cast would look good in Victorian costumes, but no-one went for it. Also, Daisy Haggard is in this one quite a bit, playing Mac's (temporary) girlfriend Emmy, and I think she's ace. It's very very hard playing a character with no sense of humour, and she does it very well. I've got a sitcom spec script doing the rounds at the moment (first few pages available here) and I think Daisy would make an excellent Jools.

Forgot to say, Rufus was supported by his sister Martha, and she sung the 'Bloody Motherfucking Arsehole' song, which I'd delighted to say you can hear on her website. I was going to asterisk bits out of that title, but the rest of this post is pretty sweary, so I won't bother. Anyway, the album comes out soon, and it sounds like it's going to be pretty special.

Off to see the Rufus

Off to see Rufus Wainwright at the London Barbican Friday night.

If you've never heard of Rufus before, run out now and buy Want One. RUN! NOW! RUN!

Of course, as I'm from Cornwall, popping up to London Village to see a concert means a three day journey of a kerjillion miles, starting tonight (Thursday) and getting back probably Sunday. Also the trains are fecked due to the storms sweeping away lots of ballast on the Newton Abbot line, so if we don't end up taking a shortcut through the Mines of Moria and coming out covered in Balrogs, I'll be very surprised.

I just hope...

God I love Sarah Beeny. For the uninitiated, she presents a show called "Property Ladder" in which naive people with too much spare money think they can spend a minimal amount of money on a decaying property, then flog it for a million squid and spend the rest of their lives drinking champagne from the cleavage of various members of Girls Aloud. Sarah's role is to hang about like a blonde Angel of Death, gently pointing out stupid mistakes and saying things like 'I just hope Tara and Quentin's choice to ignore the surveyer's report and gamble on the house not being filled with radon gas doesn't lead to the painful deaths of everyone involoved with this project'. And then she winces delicately at the camera, so we can feel she is nominally on their side even though we all know she hopes, like us, that they'll end up in the shitter.

The best Property Ladder's are when someone not only ignores the advice of the (genuinely knowledgeable) Sarah, they also do so in a way that is both cocky and slightly rude, giving her licence to pop round to the neighbours' and see what their opinion is. Because it's rarely good. Or hang around a spot where the Moneygrabbing Commoner Done Good hasn't reinforced the floorboards, saying "I just hope Moneygrabbing Commoner Done Good doesn't accidentally tread on the worn-through part of the flooring, plummeting to his eventual- oh, he has. Shame."

I like to think that when Napoleon made his ill-advised attack on Moscow, there was a Beeny standing in the background, saying quietly something along the lines of "Well, I just hope Emperor Boneapart has taken into account the notorious harshness of the Russian winter, as well as the inadviseability of stretching one's supply lines so far to the East though what is traditionally considered bandit- oh he's gone. Well, I'm sure it'll work out fine (delicate wince)."

Look! An origami yoda! Marvellous.

Proving that she really had drunk more than me at the Kernow Camra beer festival, Izzy from Cornish Rambler proposed to her boyf on that very same night. And then again in the morning, when they'd both sobered up a bit. End result: happiness. Awwww. Congratulations from me, and I hope she realizes she's now set a new standard of drinking I have absolutely no intention of ever challenging.

John Peel

Just heard of the untimely death of John Peel. Incredibly sad. I grew up listening to his radio show, and pre-internet, he was the only means of hearing 'alternative' music, stuff I never would have heard otherwise, and songs that went on to pretty much soundtrack my life. Being the perfect mix of modesty, enthusiasm and gentle humour, he always seemed to epitomise all that was best of a certain kind of Englishman. He always felt like a cool sort-of-uncle.

Don't rest in peace. Rock on.

"Teenage dreams, so hard to beat."

Strange covers, amulets and cameos

Bit of a round-up of media today:

Really enjoying The Amulet of Samarkand (The Batimaeus Trilogy book 1) by Jonathan Stroud. I'm trying to keep up with the post-Potter kidlit, but this is the first thing I've come across since Neil Gaiman's 'Coraline' that has a spark of that Diana Wynne Jones-style real magic.

Fantastic cover of the Divinyls "I Touch Myself" over at Fluxblog. Kind of great, and kind of disturbing, and then kind of great again. But still disturbing.

Watching the Director's Cut of Dawn of the Dead (can't be arsed to link). Just slightly longer, and some of the deleted scenes are pretty good. I know everyone and his dog are into zombie films these days, but this is a bit of a grower. It certainly has the 'hmmm, what would I do' element' (still not sure why they don't try and cross the rooftops/slide along the telegraph lines to get to Andy's gun shop, but then I've played wayyyyy to many role-playing games). Obviously not a patch on Shaun of the Dead, but controversially, I think running zombies have their place.

I'm working on the second draft of the film screenplay now, which is... pretty tedious really. First drafts are fun, second (and subsequent drafts) are work. Most of it is minor 'used one character's name when I meant another's' stuff, but it's been suggested I flesh out one of the characters a bit, which is a fair point, and there's certainly room (script is 84 pages, and probably even less minutes).

Patrick from Talkback sent me a CD of all the stuff I did for the first series of GW (my laptop died in the intervening period), so I've been looking back through all sorts of alternate plotlines, character developments that... didn't develop, that sort of thing. Patrick, by the way, is the chap checking out Guy's butt in the beginning of last week's episode. A number of female friends were strangely pleased to discover that in reality, Pat's very much a smooth lover of the laydeez (he does have a girlfriend though, so don't jump him in the street or anything).

On a similar note, the beautiful and talented Fay Rusling and Orianne Messina (GW/Bearded Ladies co-writers) also make an appearance on the show. Fay is the ginger nurse in ep 1 that Guy and Martin are lusting over, while Ori is the dark-haired nurse pretending not to know how to use the computer just to lure the lovely Lyndon in a later episode. They're working with the other two Bearded Ladies on a comedy pilot for C4 at the moment, so soon they'll be ever-present on your TV screens. Which, obviously, is a Good Thing.

Beer

Went to the KERNOW CAMRA real-ale festival last night. Got there at 9.12. Bar ran dry at 9.13, which says more about my impeccable sense of timing than any superhuman drinking ability. Matt ( Precise Minds web design) was there, as was Izzy from Cornish Rambler, so we discussed the finer points of Shaun of the Dead and Pip Schofield, two conversations which became inextricably intermingled as the drink flowed.

The event was at Falmouth's Princess Pavilions, which has had this amazing faded Edwardian grandeur ever since I've known it. I'm working on a kid's book called The Curious Cabinet, and sitting out in the biergarden, looking at all the ornate ironwork, the smothering ivy and the huge, prehistoric-looking tree ferns, I suddenly realized that this was one of the places I had been writing about. I may go back and get some photos later. Which will, undoubtedly, be rubbish.

The band were great, particularly the backing singer, who had a tambourine shaped like a fish. Does this mean she was Christian, or is it just not possible to get normal-shaped tambourines any more? Must investigate. I particularly like the lead singer's custom of introducing each cover version in the (approximate) accent of the original singer. "And nooo the Baytles!" And I must say, until last night, I never had the slightest inkling that Mick Jagger, lead singer of the Rolling Stones, is, in fact, Australian.

Matt's sister Sass was there, and her hair now really is getting too long. Over the course of the evening she had to be extricated from (in order): a hedge, a chair and a bench. I got a text from about midnight to tell me that she had got caught up once again whilst preparing for bed and had fallen over. Marvellous stuff. Anyway, I'm sure she's fine.

Spookah!

britishmuseum
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

One of the reasons I prefer to live in Cornwall and regularly take very long train journeys up to London as opposed to say, just living like London, is that every visit feels like a bit of an actual adventure. When friends of mine move to London it's invariably accompanied by a sort of studied ennui about the place, which drives me nuts.

Mainly because it stops you getting excited about stuff like walking towards your hotel, realizing you're walking past the British Museum (ooh!) and then realizing that there's some kind of function on because there's lots of security guards around and people in evening dress walking down a path lined with flaming torches (double ooh!). I took a photo, because it looked cool (also vaguely fascistic, but you know, in a cool way). I considered asking one of the security guards what the occasion was, but decided agin it as I would have sounded like my dad, and I'm too young for that just yet.

Also, if he's said anything other than 'Well young master, I shouldn't tell 'ee, but they do say the Illuminati themselves are gatherering within yon edifice, in a dark and secret hidden chamber to meddle with terrible forces they barely understand ooh hang on the instuctions were don't tell anyone, quick stop him before he gets away" I would have been terribly disappointed.

Photo was rubbish though. I'm beginning to think I might have to go the whole hog and actually read up on the subject to find out what I'm doing wrong, which flies in the face of everything I've learned about life so far.

Watched 'Hero' at the Covent Garden Odeon (fave cinema) while I was in London, which is a marvellous film, as much about the power and duplicity of stories as it is about people trying to stick pointy bits of metal in each other. Best possible theme of people being forced to the very limits of their moral codes and trying to work out whether they are willing to adapt and survive, or hold true and die. Or in most of the cases in that film, adapt and die anyway. However, I may be the only person in the world who thinks that wire-fu looks... a bit shit really. And while the fight on the lake was moving/balletic/inspired etc, it did also slightly make me think of Monty Python.

Fantastic interview with Neal Stephenson over at slashdot.org by the way (referred to by plenty of other blogs, but no-one should miss a chance to read anything by the writer of 'Snow Crash' 'The Diamond Age' and the three books of the Baroque Cycle. He really is utterly unlike anyone else writing today, and is to be saluted).

Message ends.

GW meeting, sort-of news, and sorry Karl

Spent mostly working on storylines and technical stuff for the second series. Fun to do, and we've got loads to get on with, but kind of boring to blog about, as obviously nothing can be given away. I'm possibly slightly in trouble for even mentioning the DVD, but at the risk of digging myself deeper in a hole of my own making, it's more 'when' than 'if'. They do take a while to do, if you want to do a proper one with commentaries and deleted scenes, so I suspect early part of next year rather than Christmas. And now I probably really am in trouble.

Just be glad it's on Channel 4. The Beeb are an utter bloody beaurocratic nightmare for bringing out stuff on DVD. Big Train is finally available after, what, a millions squillion years?

Nattles asked me after the previous post if I'd come on the C4 forum and answer a few questions. I thought I'd include the answer here, as it's too long for the comments section, and it is relevant to the blog:

Dear Nattles

Bless your heart for asking, but I'll be staying off the forums, for two quite good reasons:

1. The forums are really by and for the viewers. I certainly take a peek at them from time to time, to see what people are picking up on, but it's best not to start posting on them as "Green Wing Writer" or "Mac's Invisible Puppeteer" or whatever. Otherwise it's a bit like someone doing a stand-up gig, then putting on a rubbish false moustache and wandering round saying "Wasn't he good? Didn't you think he was good? Eh? Eh?"

2. I'm really the junior member of the writing team. I started after the pilot had been made, and the storylines for the series pretty much mapped out. Because I'm the only writer with a website (and a blog) I'm receiving a disproportionate amount of attention. Which is, you know, fun, but if I get too carried away, the other writers will take turns smacking me about with a baseball bat. However I wouldn't rule out there being a webchat or some kind of interview with the writers at some point, but not in the immediate future. Also, it's kind of Vicky Pile's baby, so if anyone really knows the why's and wherefores of it, it's her.

Also, I know full well people just want to ask me about Mac and Caroline, and I ain't gonna tell. It's more than my life's worth (see previous 'baseball bat' reference).

peace out,

James


I don't know why I said 'peace out'. Not something I've ever said before, or will ever say again. I think all the attention was going to my head. I'm okay now.

Karl Theobald (Dr. Martin Dear in GW) popped into the office yesterday, and despite having worked with him for two months and even lurked about while they were filming one of his scenes, I'm ashamed to say I didn't recognize him at first, because he wasn't wearing a white coat. Ah the power of television.

This concludes the GW news round-up, which I'm afraid, didn't consist of that much news. If I get a date for the DVD which is at least semi-official (rather than summat I overheard in the office) I'll let people know.

Meetings, dogs, string

Off to Londonville tomorrow, so already bracing self for v. long train journey. Still, I've bought a packet of Pickled Onion Monster Munch, and if that doesn't get me a double seat to myself, I don't know what will. GW meeting on Wednesday (about the DVD release, which hopefully will have lots of goodies and commentaries) and generally to see how series 2 is going. 'Team writing' sounds like we all sit round a big table and order takeouts and all that sort of thing, instead of sloping into the office, flicking through everyone's folders of work-so-far and then going home again to write in a darkened room, which is what we really do.

Just looked at the C4 forum to see people suggesting we do stuff about dogs, which is bizarre, since one of the smaller subplots we're looking at is... one of the characters getting a dog. How strange. Michelle Gomez, who plays the insane Sue White, has a lovely beast apparently, which regularly gets into magazines, but I'm not sure what breed it is. So that's the GW/dog-fanciers demographic dealt with then.

Agent Ginny has read my screenplay, and seems to approve, though she has suggestions, so I'll take my script up with me and we can go through it. I did have someone emailing me to ask how you get an agent, and I had to say 'Um, by getting enough work that they'll come to you' or words to that effect, which wasn't necessarily that helpful, but was true. I didn't have an agent when I started GW, and had been writing for cold hard cash for about five years, so I think that shows having an agent isn't the magic ticket into Writerland most people think it is.

The only other thing I would say about agents (and with me being the youngest on the GW team you should take everything I say with a huge pinch of salt, because it could be proved wrong tomorrow), is that you shouldn't necessarily be seduced by the big agencies. If someone already has (for sake of example) Tom Stoppard, Charlie Kaufman and Daniel Winters hanging about the office drinking tea, you'll probably be quite far down the list when Important People call. I'm sure some big agencies are fine, but don't write out the smaller ones. Take a look at their client list and see if the people there are doing the sort of things you want to do. That said, two of the GW writers have recently changed their agents, so you're not tied to then with string or anything.

Important points and slug update

There was a point I wanted to raise at my last meeting at Talkback, which I was unable to due to other matters raised, but my point was this:

In episode (I think) 6 of GW, there's a tight close-up on the faces of Steven Mangan and Julian Rhind-Tutt, in profile - Mangan on the left, Rhind-Tutt on the left, which looked like that optical illusion of the gap between two faces forming the shape of a vase. Only because the face shapes of Sirs M and R-T are as different as different can be, it's a very strangely shaped vase indeed.

We're doing the DVD commentary soon, and I may fail to get that observation in once again, so I just wanted to make sure it was recorded somewhere. You know how these things can niggle you.

Strangely-Shaped Vase could be a good name for a sketch show. Although I've always wanted to do a sketch show called 'The Fuck?'. Because you could do pretty much anything in that one, I reckon.

SLUG NEWS: All Slugs, All The Time

Matt, my very efficient landlord, has blocked up the gaps where the majority of sluggy pilgrims seemed to be affecting their entrance (why can't I say 'where the slugs got in'? What's wrong with me?). Except last night, when I went in for a bath, three quite small slugs were visible right in the middle of the tiled floor. We had one of those Frozen Moments, where they looked at me and I looked at them. Then they made a run for it.

So I had a cup of tea, put a couple of saucepans on for extra hot water, watched a bit of telly, and finally went back into the bathroom, picked each of them up in a bit of loo roll and flushed them down the toilet. Still not sure where they got in though.

I'm buying a gun.

Friday night turned into my family vs. the fucking proles. In increasing order of seriousness then:

Left Sass's last night about 11ish, after the televisual feast that is Friday night, and had stones thrown at me by a small boy on the other side of the road. I shouted at him, he pretended innocence, I shouted at him some more, he started mouthing off, I apologized for cutting him off but my mobile phone was going (it wasn't really), then turned off down a side road.

Then I changed my mind, turned round and chased him up the road. I had to cross another road at one point, at which point he disappeared. I prowled up and down the road for a bit, but there was no sign of him. Either he lived nearby or (I hope) he was cowering under a hedge somewhere in the road. Which is probably best, as if I had caught him, I would have taken him to the nearest fishpond and held him under until he be dead. And then I would have gone to prison, which would be a bad thing, although I could have carved out a niche for myself writing letters to other prisoners' girlfriends and wives.

Earlier that evening, my mum was about to drive back from the local shops, when some children (spot the pattern) started throwing stones at her car. Being my mum, she turned off the engine, got out of the car and cornered them in the car park, at which point they started crying.

Why do young males emerge into the civilized world under the factory setting 'Appalling Wanker'? I just don't get it. I'd like to think something can be done about it, but what? As Paula once put it, it's not just that your chavs roam the streets being abusive, foul-mouthed and stupid, it's that they also think they're All That. Why do people who know so little seem so unbelievably pleased with themselves? (and why is this turning into a Sex and the City bit? )

So far I have two solutions. 1. raising a militia of like-minded, liberally-inclined but heavily-armed compatriots and wiping the streets clean through a mixture of progressive education and automatic weaponry (the H&K UMP for preference), or 2. building my own town, with brilliant libraries, wireless broadband for all, a total ban on alcopops, and a curfew for anyone under thirty-one enforced by that ED-219 thing off Robocop .

The Nearest Train is Not Necessarily the Correct One.

Forgot to say: if you find yourself travelling from London to Cornwall via Wales, there is a strong likelihood you have caught the Wrong Train. This is probably obvious to most people, but it does no harm to mention it, and I rather wish someone had mentioned it to me Tuesday evening. In retrospect, there did seem a strangely large number of Welsh accents for a journey to Truro. Thankfully, the 4G iPod's 12-hr battery claims can now be verified as a very comforting fact. Did resort to reading the Daily Mail at one point though. Eeshk.

I saw the Magnetic Fields Sunday night (supported by the very good The Real Tuesday Weld). The show was less charmingly ramshackle than the Lyric show earlier in the year, and they did a lot of older stuff (the back catalogue is being re-released in the UK, but I still think '69 Lovesongs' is their finest hour) but still very very good indeed. I even bought a t-shirt, which is something I thought I'd grown out of about ten years ago. Now very excited about seeing Rufus Wainwright on the 29th October. From now on, I'm only going to see pop band that have grand pianos and/or cellos. It's a new rule.

Mother, and dog (dog in repose)

rowan
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Moving from the cat theme for a moment, here's a photo from the other day, when I accompanied my mum on a walk to Durgan beach and back. The dog is called Rowan, and is an enormous deerhound/saluki crossed lurcher. And like most lurchers, his favourite position seems to be on his bag with his legs in the air.

Looks like the move to Bristol is off. The filming schedule for GW2 is all over the shop at the moment, and all the work at the moment can be done from home via the astonishing power of the internet. The bit I really don't want to miss is the read-through/improv stuff, and it looks like there are a number of people who could rent out spare rooms to me whenever all that takes place. So, no more wistful shots of beaches or wandering Frodo-like and saying 'Ah, when shall I see these hills again', because the current answer is 'um, every day, apparently.'

So all I have to do now is find somewhere new to stay in Falmouth. I've decided a cool flat in Port Pendennis overlooking the harbour would be ideal, but finances could dictate otherwise.

durgan beach

durganbeach
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Here's just one of the pointlessly beautiful locations that won't be within a ten-minute drive of where I live if I move to Bristol.

carwash

carwash
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Carwash: short-sighted and supercillious (as suggested by Izzy from Cornish Rambler)

Well, I've found my second pair of glasses, which are prescription sunglasses, so I look a bit odd, bearing in mind it's a cold blowy October day. Hey ho.

It looks like I'm moving to Bristol in the new year. With GW2 cracking on at enormous speed so we can keep the same time slot, it looks like the read-throughs/improv stuff/rewrites will take place just after Christmas. And these are things you can't do if you're five and a bit hours from the rehearsal rooms and your last train back is 6.04. At least I know some people in Bristol, and with Aardman Animation being based there, it's not a bad place to hang about for a bit. But is has stuffed things up a bit with my best mate, as we were loosely looking at renting somewhere together in the new year. She's being very cool about it, and reckons it might be the kick up the arse she needs to get a better job and move out. Obviously I'm offering to buy her a number of homes with the proceeds of the GW DVD when it comes out, so maybe that'll hold her for a bit.

She's in a pretty crappy situation though, and I can sympathize. Cornwall has the classic combo of low wages and high house prices, and when all your wages are going on rent, it's impossible to save anywhere near enough to get a mortgage. If/when I eventually manage it though, I definitely want a place down here.

I certainly wouldn't even need to think about moving for most of the writing work I've done. Other than the occasional trip to the studio for PLANET COOK and BOB THE BUILDER, I've been able to work from home quite happily. But it's becoming increasingly apparent how different comedy is, as the lines between writer, performer and producer blur to a surprising degree. Does an actor's extended improvisation count as a written scene? (it's good to note that the GW actors who've been doing the most improv have been the quickest to credit the writers) A lot of the writing team for GW have already cut their teeth as actors to some extent, and have already made appearances on the show.

What it boils down to is that, I don't have to move to Bristol, but it would probably advance what I nervously refer to as a 'career' if I did. Hmmm.

No glasses

... as they're having new lenses put in, so not much blogging at the moment. In fact, not much of anything except peering owlishly at things and getting headaches when I try and focus on close-up things. I ought to say that writing is my life to me, so I'm struggling through the pain just for the sake of creation, but it isn't, so I'm not. Big meeting up in London on Tuesday about series two of GW. It's proving a bit of a nightmare to start, and when you see the last episode of this series of GW, you'll realize why...

Completely forgot that I'm off to London on Sunday to see the Magnetic Fields play at the Festival Hall, then down to Canterbury, Whitstable and London again before I return to Cornwall. I was planning on having a big roast for friends Saturday night, but can't face all the washing-up I'd have to do (or leave, and then return to after four days), so it's going to be Chinese instead. Matt, I'll give you a call later.

Agent Ginny has yet to read my film scipt (which is good, as I thought she had read but was just avoiding me). First two chapters of kid's book starting to get favourable feedback from different sources, and 'Romey loves Jools' sitcom script has been sent out plastered with GW postcards, for better or worse. Not that I'd be able to go near any of them for the forseeable future anyway, as GW2 looks like it will have to proceed at tremendous speed in order to start filming in time. Which tends to work in the writer's favour, as there isn't much time to arse about with re-writes, or for some executive spod to say things like 'Ooh, can we get an Aga in? Everyone liked Absolutely Fabulous because of the Aga, you know. It was aspirational.' I must be betting more confident in meetings, as I've started saying things like 'I don't care' and 'well, sack them then'.

Weekend

Five things I meant to do this weekend:

1. Attend the apple festival in Trelissick.
2. See a Portugesian folk singer at Praa Sands.
3. Apologize to Matt for ringing him up three times during working hours because I couldn't get the DVD player to work.
4. Drop some paperwork into cop shop to aid in the tracking down of credit card thief man.
5. Build a new compost heap for my nan.

Five things I did this weekend:

1. Ordered a new RPG called Deliria and an iPod case off the interweb (considered the £140 Dunhill leather one, but it's a lot of money just to annoy Adam).
2. Realized that I talk aloud to myself quite a lot whilst walking around town.
3. Saw girl from video shop in town, exchanged hello's. laughed politely but slightly too enthusiastically as she mumbled something I couldn't quite catch, realized too late she was on her mobile, muttered angrily to self all the way home.
4. Helped brother move into new house: gouged chunk out of new wall with chest-of-drawers. Main other tenant is a cheery New Zealand builder though, so it seems as though it'll be okay.
5. Built a new compost heap for my nan. So at least made a difference to someone other than Amazon. It's a stonking compost heap as well, assembled as a true Henry family effort: wood sourced from brother's old bedstead and bookcase, creosoted by mother, nailed together and dug in by self. All it needs is a roof and six matching eggcups and I could rent it out as a holiday homes (National Trust very big on matching eggcups, apparently).